5 skills you need to land a tech startup job

In today’s competitive job market it’s crucially important to have the right skills. To work in a tech startup, you need a whole lot more than just your specialisation. Before applying and accepting a startup job, you should ensure you have beefed up a few other key skills and competencies that are likely to make you a more desirable hire.

UI/UX understandingEven if you are solving the biggest gap in the market, nobody is going to use your product if it’s not convenient. With too much choice and competition on the tech market, your product needs to be designed for the user. UI/UX skills will help you to understand how websites and apps are designed.

While it has become an important profession in itself, UI/UX skills are also crucial for anyone working in a tech startup today. No matter whether you are building a new platform, a mobile app or coding some software, UI/UX brings everything together.

Project managementThe ability to streamline work, communicate business objectives, oversee all facets of a project and ensure you can speak the language of software engineers is vital. Although startups often take a flexible approach to work, the nature of the beast means it can easily become messy and uncoordinated. When startups begin to grow and expand their product offerings, it’s easy to forget what your real priorities are.

Ensure you have the skills - or at least the understanding - to constantly push the progress of the tech development further and faster. And don’t forget the need to adapt your project goals whenever the business direction pivots slightly.

Front-end development skills

When working for a tech startup, it’s essential to have the right coding skills. No matter what your specialisation is, you also need basic front-end development skills, such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Having a solid understanding of each of these tech languages not only gives you a competitive edge, but it will also make your daily working life simpler, as you don’t have to rely on other developers to solve minor problems.

Big Data skills

It’s no secret that big data is a huge deal. Offering great potential and business opportunities, everybody wants to collect, analyse, and monetise big data. Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward - otherwise, everybody would be doing it.

How can your startup take advantage of big data, understand customers better, and make better business decisions? Many startups are trying to incorporate data collection into their business models. However, gaining valuable insights from that data is the most important part for businesses - and for that reason, every startup employee needs to be involved.

Communication skills

As resources and capabilities are usually limited in a startup, every single employee counts. No matter what position you hold in the company, you need to be a team player.

Effective communication is key not only for your own sanity, but is also helpful for the overall morale of the company. Let your colleagues know if your workload is growing too fast. Make your team is aware in advance if you can’t make a deadline. Similarly, you need to take care of others too. Startups rely on teamwork and collaboration more than other businesses.